Dear Hank & John - 84: Live from NerdCon: Nerdfighteria!

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

Where are all the fireflies? What is "the spark"? Was Alexander Hamilton or Sirius Black a bigger drama queen? And more!

Thank you to whoever left the... hello, my name is Ryan Stickers by our microphones. And hello to all you Ryan's out there. I see so many of you in the audience. What a name, what a great name. If somewhere there's somebody who's maybe considering having a child or about to have a child or recently had a child whom they haven't named yet, don't you want to name your kid after an inside joke

and the internet's 237th most favorite podcast? We're just waiting, Hank, we're waiting for that one baby, the one baby to save us all. Baby Ryan. The one true Ryan. Hello, John. This is Dear Hank and John. That's not how we start the pod.

We start pod. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nope. That's how I started. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. Okay. Alright, so guys, alright, we've never done this live before.

I did a live podcast once without Hank. It was great, but it was all because of Karen Hallean. I had nothing to do with the quality of the podcast. Now I've got this Yahoo. So we're going to do our best, but please bear in mind, we've never done this live before. We aren't going to be taking your questions, but first we're going to take a few questions

from the listeners, and then we'll get to some of your questions. Hopefully I apologize in advance for the fact that we're not going to answer almost all of your questions. Okay, Hank, go, three, 2, 1, bang it out. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. That was weirdly over the top. Let's try it one more time. It's always over the top, John. Have you listened to the podcast? Oh, you're right. You know, I was actually listening to our most recent podcast.

And that was the one time I thought we weren't over the top. And I was like, low energy. Yeah. All right. All right. Last time. Last time. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is I for the thing with Dear John and Hank? It's a comedy podcast where me and my brother, John, we talk about death. I answer your questions, give you a debiust advice,

and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Today, we are live at NerdCon Nerd Viteria. Wow. How are you doing John I'm doing so well The for one thing for the first time in nine weeks. There is good news from AFC Wimbledon For another I have to say that this first day at Nerd Gun Nerd Viteria. This has been For another, I have to say that this first day at Nerd Gut Nerd Viteria, this has been really one of the best days of my life.

Just an incredible opportunity to hang out with people who are the best, like who are the best people. Objectively the best. And it's not all the time that you get to throw a party for yourself and have a bunch of people show up And it really does feel like we're just in a room full of friends and people Who share our values and passions and interests and it's just you know when you grow up a nerd You dream that something like this will happen And I hope that everyone is having the same kind of experience that we're having and thank you so much for being here

having the same kind of experience that we're having. And thank you so much for being here. Ooh. Well, I'm also having a very good day, John. My Mars news is bad. It's bad Mars news, John. So I'm glad that you've got some good news while I'm up. When you say bad, do you mean that it's good for the internet's leading Mars apponently onmus?

It is good for Leonmus. Wow. Do not cheer. Good news for Leon Mus is good news for me. I know that you guys are out there, but I don't want to know that you're out there. I don't want to hear you out there. Hank, follow up to the original bent re-whether the name of the podcast is Dear Hank and John or Dear John and Hank.

Does the moment we rename the podcast dear john and hank come in twenty twenty eight or does it come when it becomes truly impossible in twenty twenty eight john i think i could come any day now because it is not looking good for humans on marx by twenty twenty eight hank i have some corrections well do you have a short poem i don't uh... okay well i i i i i know i know so here's the thing about the short Hank, I have some corrections. Well, do you have a short poem? I don't. OK, well, I know. So here's the thing about the short poem.

I'm reading this incredible book of poetry by a guy named Clint Smith, I think is his name. He has four. It's so good. There's one other person in the audience. The book is called Counting Descent, and it is so good. And it also has a number of short poems in it. And so I wanted to read one of those poems,

but I haven't reached out to him to get permission. So I'll do that, and you'll get an incredible poem next week. I've got one, John. Oh, great. It's a cold place, and they say it gets colder. You're bundled up now, wait till you get older. But the meteor men beg to differ, judging by the hole and the satellite picture. The ice we skate is getting pretty thin. Oh God.

The water is getting warm, so you might as well swim. My world's on fire. How about yours? That's the way I like it, and I never get bored. Oh my God, it's burning! Oh my God! Oh my God! It's burning!

It's burning! It's burning! It's burning! So that's what happens when you forget. For those who don't know, that was a poem called, Or Who's the Don't Know? All star by Smash Mouth. All right, we got to get through some corrections really

quickly, because we got so much stuff wrong on our recent podcast. First off, we got the population of the United Kingdom wrong. The actual population of the United Kingdom is 17, 100 billion people. We also got the population of Canada wrong. It's their 14 Canadians. So I apologize to everybody in Canada, all 14 of you, all listeners to the pod, all

wrote in to correct us. Then we got several corrections about bacteria. As we often do, so first off, babies are born with gut microbes. Who knew, but they are. We got that from Francis, and Francis seems very knowledgeable on the topic. And then we got several emails correcting us about the microbes inside of cow stomachs. And I have to say, Hank, that 100% of the emails we got correcting us about cow stomach microbes also corrected us about Star Trek. That is a thing.

There's the Venn diagram is a circle. So I'm just going to have to happen. I'm going to read you one example. There's several emails like this one, but this one is from James who writes, hello, it was stated in the last pod that it was bacteria in cows that produce one, but this one is from James, who writes, hello, it was stated in the last pod that it was bacteria in cows that produce methane, but it is not, instead it is the archaea in the guts of cows that do this.

Archaea, while they appear to look like bacteria under a microscope are in fact as distantly related to bacteria as you can get sharing a common ancestor billions of years ago. Pretty cool. Humans, plants, Central are a subgroup of archaea that once ate a bacterium and kept it around as a power plant within our cell, the mitochondria.

No bacteria are known to produce methane. These methanogens have been proposed to be very ancient. They cannot stand any oxygen and methane production would be a good way of producing energy in times long ago or some scientists think. Another possible correction, while the United Federation of Planets was formed from the threat of an external enemy, the Romulan star empire, Earth was united through humanity coming together after many years of war, World War III with 600 million casualties, and the eugenics wars of the 1990s before them.

So that turned out better than we thought. Oh. I mean, oh, to get the 90s back. When first contact with the Vulcans was made after those wars, fingers crossed that the Vulcans make it here soon before World War III of Moss and Moose, James. So there you go. Thank you, James, for those two corrections.

We're wrong about Star Trek. We're wrong about the microbes inside of cow guts. I mean, if this podcast provided more dubious advice. Yes, or dubious truth. Dubious truth. That, dubious truth. That's a good name for a band in the 21st century. Well, hey, let's, one other thing. Wait, what?

In the previous podcast, Hank said that streetlights were boring. And then we got this beautiful email about streetlights that is too long for me to read, because like anything, when you pay attention to something, when you are attentive and pay close attention to it, it becomes beautiful and interesting. And it turns out that streetlights are no exception in this regard.

We got a beautiful email from a land surveyor who's been doing that work for 23 years about streetlights. We're gonna post it on the Patreon at patreon.com slash dear Hank and John, where you can see it, even if you're not a patron, although you are welcome to become one, it only costs a dollar a month, and you get essentially nothing. All right, John, we got a question. Oh, thanks, any, any Patreon patrons out there in the audience?

Hey, thank you guys. Thank you. That's pretty, that's pretty great. We mostly use that money to run SciShow and Crash Course, we'll be honest. That's actually entirely what we, what we use all of it for. Well, a little bit goes to Nick for his non-SciShow time, or non-Crash Course time. But anyway, this question is from Glenn,

who asks, dear Hank and John, quick question. Now that we can grow meat in labs, can vegetarians eat hamburgers? Is lab grown meat in labs can vegetarians eat hamburgers? Is lab grown meat vegan? Or is this also a problem for vegans? Science has blurred the lines for me. I'm not even a vegetarian. Well, I mean, I don't know why you care then, Glenn.

How do they cope? He's not concerned for his own sake. But for the vegetarian sake, he says, trolls and bridges, Glenn. What do you think, John? You're out. You're guys, this is my question. John just got like 85 miles from the mic. I don't know what's happening. I'm moving away from the question. Oh, you don't want it. You just don't want any peace of this one. Well, you guys, well, the thing is, it depends, like, it depends on why you're doing it. Being a vegetarian, there are lots of good reasons to be a vegetarian.

But I would say that the original cells that the lab-grown meat is made from came from an animal. They might not have come from an animal that had to die, but for a vegan, that doesn't matter. It's just anything that influences, it like, you are an animal for my sake and I'm gonna take your stuff so that I can survive when I don't even need that stuff. Then, like, lab-grown meat probably doesn't make sense. Also, probably, to your average vegan just sounds terrible.

Because of how it probably sounds terrible to also your average human. It's kind of like, hmm, I get that why this might be better, but also I however want it. I want it so bad. Somebody get me some lab-grown baloney I'm gonna put that with some mustard on some white bread and be a happy happy man. I'm not complicated So please send Hank 378 lab-grown hamburger patties You will be a sponsor. While we're on that topic, I just want to say a quick thank you to Nerdfighter Iyera who sent in. Ari.

I literally turned his name around in my head. Ha-ha-ha. While we're on the topic, I just want to say a quick thank you to Nerdfighter Ari who sent in 378 Diorhanken John Keychains. I took two of them, Hank took one, and we're selling the rest. Lier. What? I didn't take one.

Oh, I reserved one for you. I reserved one for you. We're selling the rest at the dftba.com booth here at NerdCon Nerdfighteria to raise money for the foundation to decrease world-sucks. So thank you, Ari. Also if you spell your name backwards, it's Ira, and it anagrams to air. Hey, we have another question. This question comes from Jordan who writes, dear John and Hank, I am a newly born nerd fighter. Let's just pause and thank Jordan for coming out of the womb able to type.

It's extraordinary. I have a three and a half year old, she's hopeless at typing. Now I feel like a failure is apparent. Jordan, thank you. I'm a newly born nerd fighter and last night at dinner an interesting question was posed. Is a person who grows cucumbers and makes them into pickles, a cucumber farmer or a pickle farmer? Please answer is this is causing distress in my family.

Jordan. Wait, no, the sign off. No longer a fetus, Jordan. Sorry, it's no memento mori. I felt that I could skip it. Okay. Well, I wanna give people credit for their sign. I like the people who are taking it seriously.

First of all, I also like that Jordan has taken the cosmic perspective of time and said, hey, look, it was not long ago. It was very recently that a person who is in their 90s was in the womb. Like, it's time and we experience it quite slowly for how quickly it passes geologically and universally. What are you talking about?

Well, I'm assuming that Jordan is not like six months old because of Jordan's concern for the distress. Oh, so by newly born, he means like 17. Yeah. Because like in the scheme of geologic time, he's just been born. Yes. Right.

Okay. That's a great point. Second, yes, we are all newborns. It's true. We're all just a bunch of babies trying to make our way in this dark and broken world. You guys give that one a Neil deGrasse Tyson so he can treat it for me. And secondly, I think you're a cucumber farmer who makes pickles.

Who makes pickles. Yeah, I agree. You produce pickles. Cucumbers are your produce. If somebody asks you to party what you do, you say I make pickles. But if somebody asks you who you are, you are a cucumber farmer. You know, like, if you want to take it all the way down, like, yeah. All right.

I'm glad we took that question seriously. You know, like, if you want to take it all the way down, like, yeah. All right. I'm glad we took that question seriously. Okay. Um. Oh, my God, it's burning. Oh, my God, it's burning. For those of you at home, don't forget. Dear John and Hank writes, Lane, I am in the 11th grade and I am being forced to take

chemistry this year. I was a straight-a student before this, but now, for the first time in my life, I'm faced with the prospect of failing a class. I feel like my world will fall apart if I do that my parents will hate me, I'll never get into a good college, and I'll end up living under a bridge. How do I ease this anxiety and get better at a subject I hate with all my being? Memento Mori Lane. Well, you don't have to, just go live under a bridge. No. Here's the thing, lane.

You're freaking out about something that like most things that you freak out about when you zoom out and think about geologic time are irrelevant. Because your life doesn't have like geologic significance. You're just future oil, Lane. So, like, and by the way, you know how that happens. Chemistry.

It's true. It's weird to think about having geologic impact because humans do. Humans have become the largest impact upon the geology of the earth in the last 50 years. Oh yeah. Parcable. We reroute rivers, we turn mountains into holes, we eliminate the trees from the landscape, which completely changes how erosion happens. It's shocking, because of course, when I once saw a paper, it was a test, and the question on the test, it was geology class, and it said, what is the greatest force in the world?

And the person wrote love. When the teacher was obviously looking for water, because the hydrological cycle has a huge impact, of course, in the system. Don't you think gravity is the greatest force in the world? Yeah, gravity also pulls the water downward, which without gravity, there would be no hydrological cycle. But, but, John, but if humans have the greatest impact

on the world as they believe they do now. Yeah. Isn't it love that made the human in the first place? Kind of. It is kind of love. It's kind of love. We're right. Yeah, it's true though. We are killing it in terms of actually answering questions. No geology and also answering questions.

Here's the thing about chemistry. Don't fail. Like, so just get that C- get it right where you need to be. You're still going to go to college. It's going to be OK. There's lots of colleges that don't care if you got a C minus in chemistry. I remember my first life.

Take this as good advice. I think it is. I think it's great. Absolutely. Yeah. Not dubious at all. Just don't fail. It's OK.

It's even OK if it's probably okay. As long as you can get that diploma lane and you can get out of high school. And you still believe in yourself and your own worth as a human, which is I think like one of the big problems with grades, but obviously it's complicated. I will say that my first chemistry class in college, I freaked and I did very badly in the first semester of chemistry. And I majored in biochemistry, so obviously that wasn't going to go. And it was so terrifying. And it was really the fear that was the reason.

I couldn't get the information in because I was so freaked out about it. And it took time and thought and like, trying to find other ways of learning it that weren't just my teacher, that were other, like, the book and the internet, to find ways to get it into my head. And eventually, it all sort of like fell into place. And stopped being this terrifying thing that was blocking me from enjoying it. Sometimes you just have to keep going until it starts to click in. And sometimes right before it starts to click in is when it feels completely hopeless. And you think, I will never understand this. I am the worst chemistry student ever. And then you start to, it starts to click in.

But you do have to seek out other ways of learning. My suspicion, Lane, given that you've done well in your other classes is that maybe the approach that's being taken to chemistry is not the approach that's gonna be most helpful to you, and so that probably means you're gonna have to seek out other approaches. I recommend Crash Course Chemistry,

but there are also other ways. We got another one. It's from Amy, who asks, dear Hank and John, I've been doing very well at school lately, but to achieve all these good grades, I feel like very fake, and almost as if I don't deserve them, and I'm stealing somebody else's work. It's like I take my knowledge from some obscure source,

and then make it sound smarter, and there's my grade. Does this happen to you too, when you upload things online and answer questions? Am I just being weird? I've never done this before. So please excuse me, if I say something unusual, thanks. Also, is it rude to email? Is Twitter better? I'm freaking out. Best wishes, Amy. I mean, there's an email address, Amy. It's Hank and John at gmail.com and it's for this specific purpose. Yeah, first off, I just want to say in terms of doing that correctly, Amy, it was great.

Yeah, perfect. It could hardly have been better. I love the exclamation point after your best wishes. Yeah, I love that you included your name. The only thing I disagree with is that you wrote Dear Hank and John, which seems like you could have done that a little bit better. But on the whole, I would say this is an A plus email.

You even got all the punctuation correctly inside of your parentheticals. This is phenomenal. I'm going to post this on the Patreon as an example of a top class email. So you got that going for you. Secondly, Hank, it seems to me that the process Amy is describing is called learning. Wait, so somebody tells me something and then like I understand it and then I say it back in my own words because I've understood it well. And then people are like, oh yeah, you get that.

And then they give you an A on a tester paper. Good job. You did school, you did school right. I mean, I think there's something else maybe going on here, which is the maybe like the dawning awareness that there's a big difference between understanding what other people have already figured out and understanding something new.

But in my experience, having essentially never realized something that other people hadn't already realized before me, you can go a long way without ever figuring out anything new. Oh yeah, you'd never figure out anything. No, I've literally never had a new idea. Yeah. Brother 2.0 was entirely stolen from ZFranc, it was like what if we did say Frank, but there was two of us Yeah, that's not really maybe a slight innovation. Yeah, maybe I slightly tweaked the formula to add a second person so that I would only have to make half as many videos Yeah Every single book I've written. I mean my critics will be happy to tell you how derivative they are. I mean you guys listen, you guys can keep going but trust me, I've thought a lot about

this and I've never thought about anything new. So Amy, you are crushing it. And I mean I cannot say enough about the grammar of this email. Even in the parts where the grammar is poor, it's obviously intentional, which I love. So Amy, just keep going. This is great. We've got another question from Jamie Joe

who writes, dear John and Hank. I grew up with a number of cartoons and children's books that all contained some instance of a character traipsing idilically through a field illuminated by fireflies. My question, where are all the fireflies? I grew up in Washington State and now go to school in Southern Utah. And there aren't fireflies in either of these places.

Do I have to go somewhere specific to find fireflies? Are they only native to very small portions of land in North America? Warm thoughts and warm regards, Jamie Joe. All right, I'm just going gonna ask for a show of yelling. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no you do not have fireflies, please yell now. Different voices, but still a lot. Yeah, I would say that according to my scientific study, Jamie Joe, there are fireflies in approximately 60% of Earth. Oh, man.

I mean, we gotta get that peer reviewed to be sure, but I think that's on. Well, John, this podcast is brought to you by Fireflies. They're just trying to find someone to love. Fireflies, they're there. Just not there, there. And of course today's podcast is brought to you by every Koala ever. Every Koala ever, a long time sponsor of Dear Hank and John. The podcast additionally is brought to you by 36-year-old Newborn Humans. Like me! I haven't been here very long.

And lastly, today's podcast is brought to you by the song All Star from Smashmouth. The song All Star from Smashmouth. A overplayed? Never. Never. Deliver a 378 of them to my PO box, please. That's asking for it, Hank. I mean, that's, oh, God.

A John. Yeah. I think it's time to put the papers down. We're going to take some questions from our beloved listeners. I think that the lines are... And the line is sufficiently long, so no longer getting in line. I'm sorry, it's your birthday. Wait, what's your name?

Alright, everyone, just quickly sing Happy Birthday to Emily. And also, who else's birthday is it? I mean, when there's 3,500 people in a room. Okay, listen, if it is your birthday stand up, we're about to sing Happy Birthday to you. Everybody who's in your birthday stand up. Don't lie We'll know Are you sure? All right, they're sure. All right everybody up there and coming people at the top Okay, they're up there in the corner. Okay, one two three happy birthday I'm your birthday to you. I'm your birthday to you. I'm your birthday dear, I'm your

birthday to you. Happy birthday, everybody. And those of you listening to the home, if it is today is your birthday as you're listening to this, happy birthday to you as well. If it is the day before or the day after, stop trying to horn in on other people's birthdays. Right.

All right, thanks so much, last special. All right, we're gonna take our first questions from over here. Yeah. Uh, hello. I have always struggled with dedicating to things that I've wanted to do. Yeah.

And my mom has quoted me as saying that I want to be really good at things without being bad at them first. How do I deal with that? You know, I snowboarded for four times. And one thing I noticed about snowboarding is that not only did I hate being bad at it, but all the people on the mountain also hated me being bad at it. Right.

And I was like, I don't know you guys, were you born with like sliding down a mountain on with like a wood strap to your feet and like your knees locked together in this thing that's definitely gonna kill you because like, did you never not know how to do this? And so that's one thing as I feel like, like we should all be more forgiving

of each other sucking at stuff because like you don't start out great. And then additionally, it's really good if you can try it like first, I think you have to be forgiving with yourself so that you can enjoy being bad. And if you can find a way to enjoy being bad, then it doesn't matter whether you're good or not.

So if you can't sing, if you're like me, and you're really just not a great singer, when I sing in the shower, I love singing. And it doesn't matter that I'm bad at it, because I love doing it. You have to find, for lack of a better term, like the love of the game, whatever the game is that you're playing, you've got to find that thing that makes you want to keep singing in the shower, even if you're

not great. And then sometimes not in the case of my singing, but sometimes you'll get better. All right, we'll go with the left. Yeah, over there that way. His other left. Your left. It's true, actually. Great point, Hank. It's everyone with the left. Yeah, over there that way. His other left. Your left. It's true, actually. Great point, Hank. It's everyone else's left. You were being very empathetic. Hello.

Hi, my name's Ryan. Hi, Ryan. Hi, Ryan. It's like a A meeting. OK. My name's actually Tori. It's disappointing. I'm disappointed, too. Yeah. Well, you're my parents. I'm disappointed too.

Yeah. Well, you're my parents. Yeah, I do. Anyway, two days before this, I was dumped. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And anyway, we met online. We had everything in common.

And I really, really liked her. And she just said, you didn't feel the spark. What is the spark? I mean, it... Well, you got your answer from the audience, I think, which is maybe a bit of BS. I feel like John's back later from the mic despite the fact that he is among us the expert in being dumped.

Well, I'm good. I mean, I know a lot about how to be dumped. I don't know a lot about this fork. I mean, you just have to, you have to trust someone when they say that and it's part-taped here, but you have to let them have their life, you know, and you have to let them have their feelings. It is not a reflection on you, although I'm sure that right now it feels like it is, but it does not mean that you're not worthy of love or that you're not a good

person. I don't think that human beings deserve much of what they get good or bad, but I definitely think that we deserve to love and to be loved. You are loved and you will be loved in your life. This is a moment when you feel probably distant from that, but it's still really deeply true. You're a valuable person and you're loved and you will continue to be loved in your life. And I hope that's some comfort, but you can't make other people feel stuff as much as

you maybe want to. I'm sorry though, it really sucks. Back to the middle. Hello, my name is Brian. Unfortunately, there's a B of the band. Wow, it's close. It's close. It's close, really close.

You can go to a courthouse and get that beach hopped right off. That's one choice. Anyways, my question isn't actually from me. It's from my friend, Caitlin. And she is trying to decide whether to focus on biology or English and given your two professions and majors. She was wondering if you could speak to that. Get yourself a self that can do both. Yeah, I mean, I, well, right, like I think you're gonna do more than one thing in your life. Like, we always weasel out of this question, and so you're gonna watch us do it again, but

there's this idea, like, especially when you're young, because you are forced to pick a major field of study, and it's hard to pick both. I mean, you can double major in biology and English, and I know people, some of my friends from college, and one of whom's now a very successful doctor who is also a very good writer. But it is possible. But you're going to do more than one thing in your life. So it's good to know about both. Like, ultimately, I think biology and English,

aren't they both trying to understand what we're doing and how we got here? It's just different approaches to the same like big questions in a lot of cases. So, I don't, yeah, I'm wheezing. Yeah, definitely wheezing, wheezing, wheezing, wheezing, wheezing. Wheezing, wheezing, wheezing, wheezing, make your own decision. Yeah. The only other thing I'd say to Caitlin is I'm going to flip this cup.

And if it lands like that, that's English. And if it lands like this, which I think is slightly more likely based on my knowledge of physics, that's biology. Because I think it's probably on average slightly better to study biology. So here we go. Really weird, you think either of those things are going to happen. Weasel, weasel, weasel. Let's go upland it on its side.

She's got to have to make her own choice unfortunately Hello lefties. Hi, so I'm so happy that Brian went ahead of me. My name is Brianna, which also kind of has Ryan in it I mean we're getting so close getting really close and by the way the first person who says the name is Ryan is definitely gonna be lying Anyway, what hi Brianna? Brianna it's Brianna. I can go by Bri because even my loved Anyway, hi Brianna. Brianna? It's Brianna. I can't go by Bri because even my love ones call me Brianna. Sorry, it's sorry. Okay, you're not the first.

Okay. So, my question is that, so I'm 19 and I have one younger sister who is 15. I love her and we are very close, but I also very much want to murder her most of the time. So, my question is, are there any particular issues or anything that you guys feel that urge to murder each other over? Can I stop you real quick and just ask a follow-up question to your question?

Yes. Do you mean murder literally? I mean, I've tried to hit her with things, but I'm older, so my mom told me that's not responsible. So I mean. All right. Well, don't kill anybody. Don't kill your sister.

That's right. Or any, or your great point Hank. Don't kill anybody. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some of our advice is dubious. But was it more of a question about our... Yeah, that was the question, but I just wanted to check in real quick on the murder situation.

I mean, have we punched each other? I've punched you. Yeah, I mean, we were not in a wild world. I mean, Hank and I had a pretty intense rivalry when we were kids, you know? Because I was like the same size, but three years, like, less mature and younger and right. And looking up to him, yeah. So I could beat him up, but I was very, very, like, less cognitively mature. I mean, I think, like, for me, the critical moment came when I started respecting Hank

and thinking of him as a really interesting person, which was probably around the time that I was like 16 or 17. I recognized that he was a really smart, interesting guy. And after that, you know, a lot of it felt like I was almost trying to like repair, I felt like there was some repairs that needed to be done in our relationship. But to be honest, we were not really close until Brotherhood 2.0. I mean, that's why we did it, because we would talk on the phone maybe like once every year, once every two years. We would like AOL instead of message sometimes when there was something

important going. But not even that often. Not like weekly or anything. And I just admired, kind of like I admired Hank from afar. I was like, what a cool person who's technically in my nuclear family. And so when I was thinking about, oh, I would be great to do a collaborative video blog that would be like, Lonely Girl 15 meets the show with Zayn Frank, because it really was just those two ideas.

I thought it would be cool, like, what a great opportunity that might be to get close to Hank again. And since then, since January 1st, 2007, we've never had a big fight. Right? No, I mean, like, yeah, we have dealt with... I don't think we've shouted each other. No. Yeah I mean when we have shattered at each other it's been about the same like we it's been in an in agreement Right, there's none of them in shouting in the same room. We're just really worked up But we're on the same page. Yeah, we're really shouting it someone else who's not there

We're mad, but we're mad in the same direction. Not this way. And there have been a few times when Hank has been super annoyed with me. I remember one time at the first VidCon, he said, why are you looking at me? And I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, put your eyes away.

It was a stressful moment. But it was just stressful. And I wasn't helping. I was like, Hank, there's a problem. And he's like, I'm aware there's a problem. And I was like, but there is a problem. And he was like, I know about the problem. And I was like, but I was told to come tell you that there is a problem.

And I don't know how to solve it. And then I murdered him. No, then eventually the Gregory Brothers got their video working. And then as it happened, the weird thing about that story is that in that moment we were so tense, like, more stressed out than we've been almost probably since then, except for a few occasions. And we were thinking like this VidCon thing that's, you know,

is going to fail. And this is the moment where it's truly gonna fail. And then once the video started working, the Gregory Brothers performed an actually and literally sacred version of their song, Double Rainbow, that transported all of us out of the basement of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza into some like ethereal land

that only like beauty can take you to and it all worked out better than expected. Not really answering your question, but thank you, that was lovely. And everybody loves yo, somebody bear. I'm going back to the middle. Hello. Hi, my name is Stephanie. I'm not Ryan, unfortunately.

Not even this. And I want to start by thanking you both for everything you do. Thank you Stephanie. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you. Thank you. Woo! You don't know everything I do. Reminds me of a line from James Joyce, someone once walked up

to him on the street and said, may I shake the hand that wrote you wishes? And he said, no, it's done a lot of other things. He was a complicated man. I'm sorry Stephanie, what was your question? My question is between Alexander Hamilton and Sirius Black, who is the bigger drama queen? Contentious question and the rule. That puts us in a tight spot, Stephanie. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that.

I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. was like, no, I will not do that.

Yeah. Yeah, I might pull a Lin-Manuel Miranda on this one. Like, if Lin-Manuel Miranda won't answer the question, there's no way in hell I'm going to answer the question. Because my answer is literally whatever Lin-Manuel Miranda said. Ha-ha-ha-ha. High quality answer, John. Thank you.

Thanks for the question. Thank you. Sorry for the question. Thank you. Oh my God, we are so good at wheezinging. Bring us more. We should run for office. No, no, no. Thank you, but no.

I honestly, I don't know if that applause is a compliment. Yes. Hello, my name is Glenn. Sadly it's not Ryan. My brother's name is Ryan, if that counts for any. That's great. Congratulations to him. And my issue is, my girlfriend is vehemently against the idea of me going into space.

She thinks it's very dangerous. I understand. Yes, I had this experience as well when I was first dating my current wife. Do you have any dubious advice of how to convince her that I will probably not explode in die? You know, I have a, I actually have a literal friend who may go to space who is married and has children and I have, I know some other people who have been to space and it's not an insignificant thing for the family.

Like it is a dangerous job. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't, I think you're on the wrong side of this one. Well, I wouldn't go there early. I wouldn't necessarily, but I do, and I think that you know, take that concern seriously. And my friend is like, it was a long conversation about like, and also like, as he got closer to that dream, it became more of like, oh, we actually have to talk about this and not in a joky way kind of thing.

So it's not necessarily something like a bridge you have to cross right now. You know, there's a number of life choices that you don't make early in a relationship. Yeah, I mean, that's maybe what I'd say is, wait at the conversation seriously until you're confident that this is, well, maybe you are, I don't know, but to your confident that this is a lifelong thing, both the space, and the relationship thing. Yeah. But I mean, I would never...

Because what happened to me is I was like, I want to go to Mars. Like, that's one of my goals in life. And, and, and, and, Catherine was like, you know, like, we're not going to get married. So what's, what's the concern? I don't care. You go to Mars.

Like, we, we've been dating for three weeks. Um, and then it turned out I don't want to go to Mars because like, I throw up on, like, I get nauseous and elevators. So, Mars is not the place for me. Is Mars the place for anyone really? Yes. OK. All right.

Get over yourself, John. Back to the middle. So I'm Ben. Hi, Ben. My name is Ben. Hi. So my question is, you guys have been doing this for 10 years. So 10 years ago, where did you guys think you would be?

And 10 years from now, where do you think you will be? Oh, yeah. What about you? Where do you think you'll be? I'm not like a future thinker. I have to be honest with you. Yeah, I mean, certainly 10 years ago, I didn't think I'd be making YouTube videos in 10 years.

I thought YouTube was going to pass through the world the way that most things do. And I certainly never, I mean, yeah, it was unimaginable. Like, the... I look back at where, like, what I was doing 10 years ago, I was living in New York. I had just published an abundance of Catherine's, which had been this, like, colossal commercial failure, frankly. And, you know, I was trying to write another book, and I was making videos with my brother that, at the time, 10 years ago, you know, between 400 and 500 people were watching each video and it felt great.

I mean, that's the weird thing. It felt like we had a really, like we were beginning to form a really strong community that was starting to do really cool stuff. Like, it was almost exactly 10 years ago that I got this infection behind my eye or what I'll sell you lightest and that was really the first Nerdfighter project, was Hank asked people to send in pictures of themselves with stuff on their head, and we had like 400 viewers, and we got like 350 pictures. And I was like, it's happened.

Like, where, you know, we had this amazing community of viewers, and we're going to be able to do lots of cool stuff together. And I basically still feel that way. Like that feeling hasn't really changed much. And I just kind of just want to have that feeling in 10 years. And I don't really, I hope that there's still a bunch of people, but if it's just like four or 500 of us, but it's four or 500 of us who care enough to send in a picture, that's the best yes. Ha ha ha. You can't really, you really can't go off on your own.

I've locked you in. I don't want to. I mean, I really like collaborating with you. It's fun and weird and like you're super. Ah, shut up, don't I. No, I don't mean, I don't. I was about to say a bunch of negative things about Hank, but then you interrupt me with your alls.

What else am I, John? You just like, you don't, you have a different set of incentives from every other person I know. I am a normal person who is motivated by money and ego and power and success and you have no interest in any of that stuff and it's so cool to be your brother because you pull me in all kinds of weird directions that you can only get pulled in if you genuinely do not experience those incentives the way most people do. Oh, that's very nice.

Huh? That's very nice. Thank you. I just, yeah, I'm pulled in those directions as well. I'm also just pulled in, like, toward weird. I really like weird. I know my favorite people are people who just want to do weird stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just love it, like, especially when the weird stuff is in some ways like generous or kind to an audience. I love that. Yeah, I was just thinking about how like, it's almost like, it feels wrong in some ways

to think that you can be like silly and dumb and absurd and at the same time really authentic and caring and thoughtful. Like those things don't feel like they're two things that should be able to be pushed together but those are the things I like to push together. When they are, it's amazing. Like carrying the potters, it's amazing. When there's stuff, when that's stuff, it's like nuclear fusion.

Yeah. Yes. All right, hey, we have like a few more minutes to answer questions. So let's get through as many as we can, hello. Hi, my name is Ryan Spells, U-G-O. Ryan. Cool, perfect. Great.

Me and my girlfriend were in a tripped traveling, and then we got stuck in men's traffic, and there was no way I had to go to a bathroom. There, so I decided to like bend in paper tones. Yeah. Improvise. Yeah. And my question is, we had a debate. What's the proper way to dump the content that was?

Well, hopefully you've got, did you have a screw tattoo? Was like Gatorade Bottle was like an open can. It was like a McDonald's. Oh, okay, great. That's very helpful. Thank you. So it was a McDonald's cup. So what you do in that situation?

Absolutely. Do you throw it on the road? No. John has a price. Or do you throw the cup and everything away? No, no, no, no, no. So you go when you eventually come to a place where you. John has a price. Or you could scroll the cup and everything away. No, no, no, no. So you go when you eventually come to a place where you can go to a bathroom, you go to a bathroom, you dump the urine into the toilet, and then you take the de-urined cup and you

put it in the trash, but you put it in deep enough that nobody will touch it by accident. That is, I think, your responsibility. Yeah. Like, if there's a piece of pizza that gets thrown in there, you don't want it to land on the cup because I might come along later and eat that piece of pizza. You need to, what you probably want to do is you want to put a couple of paper towels

maybe over the D you're in McDonald's. Right, exactly like what I do when I get a illicit corn dog in the way home from work, and then I put that in the trash, and then a couple of paper towels over it, so Catherine doesn't know I had the corn dog. Is that? Yes. That stick is still in there.

Hi, my name is Lance, and I was wondering, what goes into making a podcast like Beside Behind the Scenes, like how does, how is Deer Hake John made behind the scene? Well, as you can see, Lance, we're an incredibly professional operation. We upload the files to a drop box, we're nick then downloads them, and then he does something,

and then it comes out on iTunes. Yeah, we don't know what he does. We don't, it's some kind of black magic. Yeah, we don't know much about how it works, but we're grateful. Every Monday it comes out, and I'm like, ooh, we sound much better than we sounded in real life. Good work, Nick.

We're going to take one more question before on the news from Mars and AFC Wimmelden. It's going to be ready. I'm sorry. Sorry, last person. You're not having your question asked. I'm so sorry. That's the worst.

Hi. My name's Jackie. That's an honor. So I guess I set up a bit of my question, I used to be in a research master's and basically the professor told me I couldn't do it and I basically said, well, to heck with it, I'm going to prove you wrong and I did it anyway. Great, that's awesome. But I guess the problem was that even though I was eventually able to do it, it kind of destroyed

myself confidence. So I'm in a new degree now. I'm starting to be a genetic counselor, but I get told a lot from my supervisors, a lot of good things and all the bad things. Well, not maybe a lot of bad things, but critique some besides. And I professor told me a few weeks ago that she's noticed I always keep my head down, but I'm a good student. I can be a good genetic counselor, but I always focus on the bad that I get. What is your dubious advice of how can I learn to remember the good things that come out of feedback? Yeah, I mean, I, so like, I had like deal with people, like managing people a lot in my

daily life now. And whenever I'm talking to them, I'm trying, I'm trying to help them learn, like, ideally they can learn something from me. And so if I only give them positive feedback, even if they're the best, like, they're not growing. And so I'm looking for things to be like, what aren't you perfect at? And like, that is a very important part of all of our developments. Like, I need to hear from you guys when I mess up. I need to hear from John when I mess up. I need to hear from my employees

when I mess up. Like, when I'm not doing, like, if I can't do something better, I want to know that. So it's more, like, it's less about concentrating on the good things. It's more about understanding that the criticisms that you're getting are they're not saying that you suck or that you you shouldn't be doing this. They're saying like we could all be better. Like there's no one like there's no one who couldn't be better at the thing that they're doing. Right. Like here's the next step. That's how I try to think of it.

What can I learn and do better in the next book? I will say negative comments penetrate in a way. Positive comments never can because you suspect that they are secretly true or that it reveals the secret truth about you, which is that you are worthless or whatever. And that part isn't true. Like when you're hearing something negative and taking that in as I am worthless

or I am not up to this or I am not good enough, like that part is not true. You aren't good enough, you are up to this, you do, you are capable of it and you can get there. And I try to remind myself of that, that when I'm turning feedback into a reflection on me as a person and thinking that it makes me a piece of trash in the parlance of the internet. Like, that's a mistake because no person is and certainly not me. And I guess the only thing

I'd say on that front is like when I get negative feedback, I really, really try hard not to not to get defensive, but instead to say, okay, is that right? And if it's right, can I learn from it and get better at what I love doing? And hopefully that turns it into something that's not so biting and personal, but instead is an opportunity to, you know, focus, like, figure out what you're going to focus on in your next few steps as you go toward the goal that you will achieve. All right. Hank!

Let's face it, nobody comes to this podcast for Dubie's advice. They come to this podcast for two reasons and two reasons only. Number one, and by far the most important, is to find out the news from AFC Wimbledon. League one's greatest team. Not by quality of results, but by quality of something greater than results. And the other reason is to find out the news from Mars.

The solar system's... The solar system's second most important planet and eighth most important by mass. Maybe sixth, fourth, the planet... You got Jupiter, Saturn... You got the math? Is the Sun a Planet? Is this the Sun of Planet? Earth?

No. Neptune and Uranus are also gas giants. It doesn't matter, John. We don't have enough time for you to figure out the freaking order of the planets. The news from Mars, as people trickle out of the auditorium because no one cares. That's not true.

The vast majority of people are still here. There's like 2,500 people here waiting on the edge of their seats to find out what just happened on a cold dead rock. Light minutes away from us. Didn't even happen on the cold dead rock. It happened here on Earth. SpaceX, as you may remember from last year, when I announced this, and decided that they were going to go to Mars

They're going to send one of their dragon capsules to the surface of Mars and it was going to launch in 2018 That was a very ambitious goal. They have decided that they are not going to meet that goal Getting the dragon capsule to the surface of Mars in 2018 was really like kind of the thing that needed to happen for 2018 was really like kind of the thing that needed to happen for 2028 to be not like Oh, ridiculously ludicrous timeline for getting a human demars, which really always it was. It's really about locking it in for till 28. 2028 with the dear Hank and John because you're not going to

change the name on me. It's not going to happen. We're going to fight about this later. It's fine. If Elon Musk himself says that 2027 is no longer a possible date, if we get Elon Musk out of the... That's not how it works. Not how it works. Alright.

Yeah, let's start it. How it works. Not how it works. I mean... Okay, alright, okay, alright. First off, there are a bunch of people who weren't chanting and I know all those people agree with me. Anyway, but regardless of those people's existence or not, SpaceX has decided that they're going to

be launching that mission in 2020. It takes about two-year launch windows for Mars exploration. So you basically only, like, the planets only line up at the right spot every two years. So you're gonna have to wait. So hey, but, but, but, it's possible that they will be able to make this a better, more useful cooler mission

by incorporating a sample return mission that they wanted to do a little bit later as the second mission to Mars. So maybe this will allow enough time to develop that sample return. So the first mission will collect some samples from the surface of Mars, or that have been previously collected by a rover, and then return those to Earth

to be studied by real human hands, which is almost like going to Mars except bringing it to us instead. Why go to Mars when Mars can come to us? So Hank, it has not been a great 2017 for AFC Wimbledon, or some would argue more generally, but in fact, since Christmas, AFC Wimbledon has won by my count no games. No, just the one, just the one,

Beat Oxford United 2-1 on January 14th. Since October, AFC Wimbledon, until very recently, had scored no goals away from home and has had a very tough January, not least because of our noted opponents, Waterlogged Pitch and Frozen Pitch, both of whom we drew against. And then, last four nil, the Sheffield United, had two fight backs down one nile to get one one draws earlier in the month,

then lost a game in the last second to Shrewsbury. And then we've played our old friend, Gillingham, or possibly Gillingham, I still don't remember. And we drew that game two, too, with a last minute equalizer. So that was good, but there have been a lot of draws and no wins, and we were beginning to creep down the table to the area where it gets very scary.

Because if you are one of the bottom four teams in lead one, you do not get to play in lead one next season. You have to go play in lead two, which is the fourth tier of English soccer, because everything is named very appropriately in England. And it was getting very nervous, and I was very anxious, and I was refreshing throughout this morning at NerdConHank.

I was just thinking I'm having the best day ever. If only AFC Wimbledon could find a goal. And then in the 68th minute, who should score? But the messy for Montserrat, the Caribbean Cristiano Ronaldo, Lyle Taylor, scored a goal to put AFC Wimbledon one-nil up. Their opponents wall saw, wall saw, nobody knows how to say it. They hit the post, they hit the inside of the post in the 90th minute,

but they did not score. AFC Wimbledon won the game. And then, I'm, uh... ...anding eight weeks, eight long weeks of not winning, um, and they now find themselves... I wouldn't say comfortable, but they find themselves in 13th place on 43 points. Hank, the magic number is 52. If we could get 52 points, we almost definitely stay up. We've got 13 games to get nine points. That should be doable Those parts Days sports All right, John. What do we learn today? Well Hank, we learned that

Is that an actual dog? There's a real dog in here. That's cool. Oh, I'm sorry if we're stressing your dog out. Oh, no, they're probably stressing each other out now. Oh, there's porn dogs up here. What are we going to do, Hank? Well, that was the question I asked you, but you got real distracted.

So I'm just going to go ahead and say that we learn that street lights and their planning can be beautiful and complex and wonderful. And you can learn that at patreon.com slash dear hanga john wait Get the patreon in there for a second time today hang that's hard work Of course we learned that Hank wants 378 lab meat patties and we also learned that if you pee in a cup You pour the pee into the toilet and then the cup goes in the trash Very little bit down and lastly we learned that all of us in the scheme of things are newly born. Even that doggy. Thank you all so much for being here. That is ultimately what we learned.

Is that doing live? Dear Hank and John, works. And it's real fun. Yeah, hopefully we'll get to do this again. Thank you all for listening. Real quickly, I it. I got to do the I got to do the credits You can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com. I think is that our email address? Yeah, I'm I'm John Green on Twitter Hank is Hank Green You use the hashtag dear Hank and John our podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins produced by Rosiana Halson shared in Gibson Victoria von Schorners our head of community and communications and our music is by the great Gunnarola. Thank you again for listening as we say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. Thank you guys. Don't leave.